Electronic transmission and display of information is prevalent. Forms of electronic displays of information include web pages, electronic mail (email) and attachments, text messages, displaying documents such as text and image documents, spreadsheets, or other forms of files or data. Such information display can take place on many types of devices such as computer systems, billboard displays, cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), email devices, cameras, etc.
Along with displaying main content that is the initial subject of interest to viewers, advertising or other commercial content is often included with the display of the main content. Displaying commercial content is an important revenue source for many providers of the main content, or for providers of other services or equipment that contribute to a user's access to the main content. One approach to providing advertising content includes ads that are adjacent to or embedded with portions of the main content. When the ad is displayed in a web page, many of the ad's characteristics (i.e., ad metadata) such as ad type, position within a web page, color, size, text font, animation, etc. become very important to whether a user notices the ad and reads the ad or otherwise reacts to the ad. Ideally, for the ad's sponsor, the user will click on the ad to be taken to a commercial website to be presented with additional product or service information or, ideally, to complete a sale. In many cases, the content providers are compensated on a per ad click basis. Even if the ad is merely noticed by the user, then a psychological attachment to the sponsor's product or service can be achieved which can have significant value to the ad's sponsor.
Many ads are blended with the main content. For example, the color of ad links matches the color of the content links, and the color of the ad description text matches the color of the content text. Many ads pay publishers based on the frequency of click-throughs. Accordingly, publishers have increasingly looked to blend their ads, believing this to provide the best click-through rate (CTR) performance, and thus, the optimal revenue generating format.